Monday, July 20, 2015

Fear of the Future?

69 comments:

I’m beginning to think you could be right about 16 being an election for change. I’s amazing how The Donald’s racist comments seem to resonate with a laege part of the US public. And then there’s Bernie who also seems to be polling well. That could make for an interesting race, for sure!

Because he said what was on everyone's mind. When are REAL war heroes, ones who succeed (not fail) going to be recognized? When are we going to stop pretending that they don't matter or exist, and only honour "victims" (like McCain)?

Trump's no dummy. He went to military school. He knows that Napoleon, Ney, Massena, Murat, etc. are looked up to by real military men, NOT POW's.

All we need to know about Donald Trump is that the first time he ever talked politics, he floated the idea of a 14.25% annual federal tax on your property values and bank account balances, And that he wears spider monkey fur on his head.

Donald Trump made his money the old fashioned way... real estate scams.

When hurricane Sandy destroyed the beaches of New York's Long Island, Trump had finegaled a sweetheart deal with Jones Beach to build a huge wedding catering complex on public property. Fortunately, Sandy took out all his construction efforts and he abandoned the project.

Imagine what Trump could do with all the vacant government-owned real estate in this country...

Forty years ago, John McCain was a war hero. Since then he's mostly been an asshole. The problem is you can't out-asshole Donald Trump. McCain is in the Superbowl of assholery and hopelessly outmatched. He was doing assholery-as-usual last week, sneering at Trump's supporters as "the crazies". On recent polls that's getting on for 20 per cent of the Republican vote. If 20 per cent of Republican "crazies" take the same umbrage at McCain's sneer that Rick Perry, Lindsey Graham, Reince Preibus et al have taken on McCain's behalf at Trump's, then Hillary will be President with a Democratic Senate and maybe even House.

Left wing ass-holes like Stewart and Colbert have been yucking it up for a decade now. The Snark has turned into a Boojum.

As WF Buckley once said, "I am obliged to confess I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University."

Now, until a Republican candidate calls for running Mitt Romney through a tree mulcher (Romney supporters will just have to set aside their principles...) I'm not interested in Republican candidates. But, it is funny to watch Trump the Democrat pretend to be a Republican and punk them.

Trump then told a story about Graham calling him 4 years ago for a campaign endorsement and contribution. Trump claimed he went back through his phone records and found Graham’s private cell phone number. He showed the audience the number, written down on a yellow post-it note, and read the number aloud, encouraging everyone “let’s try it.”

On “Hardball” Thursday, Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz told host Chris Matthews that he is “in complete agreement” with fellow senator Bernie Sanders on a number of issues, including corporate welfare.

“Far too many Democrats — and I will readily admit far too many Republicans — are supporting hundreds of billions of dollars of loan guarantees to giant corporations at the expense of the taxpayers,” Cruz said. “I think people are fed up with that. They want someone who will stand with the working man and woman against the bipartisan corruption of Washington.”

Matthews sensed that Cruz’s support of Sanders originated from a place of deep dishonesty, and asked, “is that a strategy on the right, to build up Bernie Sanders?”

“I’ve said it for a long time,” Cruz replied, “I like and respect Bernie Sanders.”

“Yes,” Matthews said, “but you’re building him up. You just did it. You took an opportunity there to build him up. What is the strategy to build up Bernie Sanders from the right-wing perspective?”

Cruz replied that “Bernie admits he’s a socialist, we can at least have an honest debate” — suggesting that it’s impossible to have “an honest debate” with covert socialists like President Barack Obama or Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.

“You’re a Tea Party guy!” Matthews shot back.

“I think there are an awful lot of Democrats in the United States Senate whose policies are every bit as liberal or every bit as socialist as Bernie’s, but they don’t admit it,” Cruz explained. “I’m enjoying watching Hillary Clinton explain to the voters how she is just as much of a socialist as Bernie Sanders.”

Matthews later noted that he understood why conservatives were suddenly so enthusiastic about the Vermont senator. “I know what you’re up to,” Matthews said. “It’s called trouble-making.”

I think that despite the Senator's wife's job, Cruz was being honest. And let's both acknowledge that ~30% of Trump's so-called "support" comes from Progressives looking to "make trouble" within the RNC.

It all depends upon who you perceive as the "weaker" candidate. Many on the Left see Trump as one. Some on the Right foolishly see Bernie as one.

I actually thought that Clinton did her self a bit of good with her economic speech the other day. She moved very much in Bernie's direction, with her talk of making corporation pay their employee's more justly... but IMO, unless one seals one's borders against them, corporations will evade doing their part.

As Clinton said it was time for U.S. companies to "break free from the tyranny of today's earnings report so they can do what they do best, innovate, invest and build tomorrow's prosperity,"

"It is clear that the system is out of balance," Clinton said of a corporate culture that stresses short-term gain over long term investment.

"It is time to start measuring value in terms of years," not days, Clinton added.

Instead, Clinton outlined a series of policy proposals that she hopes would rebuild "a connection between companies and their workers, so that workers are seen as assets rather than costs," her campaign aides said.

"It's time to return to an old-fashioned idea," Clinton said, "that companies' responsibility to their shareholders also encompasses a responsibility to employees, customers, communities and ultimately to our country, and yes, our planet."

No, not those specifically. Hers is a very "muddled" approach, that tries to reform neoliberal capitalism, rather than tear it apart and place it upon a new foundation, as I would prefer. The statements I was referring to were those that would force companies to prefer compensating "employees" over "shareholders", tax capital gains at individual income rates, and the like.

Where she goes wrong is in her premise that shareholders currently actually receive value from companies. They don't... UNLESS they "sell". Few companies pay dividends, they simply re-invest and re-invest in the company itself. The only way a shareholder "profits" is to buy the stock at a low price, and sell it at a higher one.

The picture is more clear if you don't make the common mistake of confusing Tea Party populists with right-wing conservatives. Why isn't Bernie Sanders a Tea Party favorite? Because proud socialists embarrass self-loathing socialists?

Links

On Redemption

To redeem the past and to transform every ‘It was’ into an ‘I willed it thus!’ – that alone I call redemption!

Nietzsche, "Thus Spoke Zarathustra"

->

Andrei Tarkovsky

“We can express our feelings regarding the world around us either by poetic or by descriptive means... I prefer to express myself metaphorically. Let me stress: metaphorically, not symbolically. A symbol contains within itself a definite meaning, certain intellectual formula, while metaphor is an image. An image possessing the same distinguishing features as the world it represents. An image — as opposed to a symbol — is indefinite in meaning. One cannot speak of the infinite world by applying tools that are definite and finite. We can analyse the formula that constitutes a symbol, while metaphor is a being-within-itself, it’s a monomial. It falls apart at any attempt of touching it."